This thesis tests two explanations of variations in firms' accounting policy choices for identifiable intangible assets from 1980 to 1989. The first proposition is that cross-sectional variations in these choices are systematically related to firm specific economic attributes. The second proposition is that intertemporal variations in these choices are associated with the impact of professional and statutory accounting goodwill regulation on firms' contracting structures.

Separate analysis of the capitalisation and amortisation components of firms' accounting policy choices yields support for both explanations of observed behaviour. Overall, identifiable intangible assets accounting method choices appear to have been an avoidance mechanism for firms' wishing to circumvent the undesirable "amortisation effect" of goodwill regulation on existing and prospective contracts. For some firms the nature of this avoidance strategy was efficient, for others it was opportunistic. Furthermore, these motives became more apparent with the introduction of progressively more inhibitive regulation.

In addition to providing support for the endogeniety of accounting policy choices and the material impact of goodwill regulation on firms' contracting equilibria, this thesis applies pooled cross-sectional and time series estimation techniques to the problem of specification of intertemporal interactions between opportunism and efficiency effects. Extension of this methodology may yield greater understanding of the nature of these effects. In particular, incorporation of cross-sectional correlations between firms in time-wise autoregressive models of accounting policy choices is suggested as an area worthy of future research.